For purposes of this description and meaning of the claimed invention the present rotary engine embodiments are broadly directed to pistonless rotary engines. That is, the claimed embodiments are directed to an engine and associated methodology that converts the high energy state of a working fluid into rotating output motion, as distinguishable from the reciprocating output motion of a piston rotary engine.
Some types of such rotary engines are powered by internally combusting a fuel to set the rotor in motion by sequentially timed explosions resulting from the combustion. The Wankel engine is a well known type of such a rotary internal combustion engine, popularly commercialized by Mazda, for example, in the automotive industry. The Wankel engine, first patented in 1929, employs a rotor shaped similar to a Reuleaux triangle rotationally engaging an epitrochoid-shaped bore. Although the Wankel engine design requires less complexity and fewer precision moving parts than a comparative in-line or V configuration piston engine, it yet remains more complicated than present embodiments that advantageously remove the combustion process from within the engine. A four stroke internal combustion rotary engine, for example, requires that the rotor establish four separate chambers for supporting the combustion process; the intake chamber, the compression chamber, the combustion chamber, and the exhaust chamber. Further, the by-products of the combustion process inside such an engine can contaminate the engine internal working surfaces and thus be detrimental to achieving a reliably robust engine design.
Steam powered engines, on the other hand, are external combustion engines that generally receive high energy steam from a companion device, such as a package boiler and the like, and harness it in a manner that converts the input fluid energy into mechanical motion. Steam driven turbines, for example, are the predominant source of electrical power generation in the United States.
At the turn of the 20th century there was a significant effort in the industry to marry the advantages of steam power to the advantages of the pistonless rotary engine design. A good number of what appeared to be promising solutions, such as the Hult engine, the Tower engine, and the Dolgorouki engine, all fell by the wayside to become no more than interesting museum artifacts. Improvements have eluded those skilled in the art for more than a century, preventing any breakthrough to a commercially viable design for a pistonless rotary steam engine. It is to those enabling improvements that the embodiments of the present invention are so directed.